


Hearts, Love and Honor

by lovelokest



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: undermistletoe, Jossed, M/M, Schmoop, Spoilers: Phantoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelokest/pseuds/lovelokest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He liked it here, so different than the comfort of cold, dead Antarctica and so much more right. His chest swelled as he took a deep breath of air, feeling the life of the place fill him and surge through his body, a worthy balm to his soul. He let himself be in the moment, soil beneath his toes and sky above his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts, Love and Honor

**Author's Note:**

> Big, huge thanks to lallybroch for last minute beta and to fairestcat and bipagan for alpha reading and brainstorming. Any remaining mistakes are mine own. The title was stolen from a song by The Headstones.
> 
> Written for the Mystery Schmoop Week challenge at undermistletoe and proves that I can't write schmoop without hurting someone first.

The grass was lush and cool with morning dew under his bare feet and the sky brilliant blue. John squinted in the bright sun and turned around, feeling a breeze wrap coolly around his body, fresh with the smell of lilacs and lavender and ocean spray. He closed his eyes and heard the slap of ocean surf, surging and crashing noises that mingled with the crowing of gulls and wind through the trees. The sun warmed his shoulders, turning the insides of his eyelids red as he raised his face to the sun. 

He liked it here, so different than the comfort of cold, dead Antarctica and so much more right. His chest swelled as he took a deep breath of air, feeling the life of the place fill him and surge through his body, a worthy balm to his soul. He let himself be in the moment, soil beneath his toes and sky above his head.

A compulsion ran through him and with a sure foot, he followed a small path to a thick forest, towards the promised ocean. He looked around with a shiver, feeling that he was missing something, a chink in his paradise he could not place. The feeling grew as he left the fertile field for the forest, the sky clouded and the air cooled, rustling ever louder through drying leaves, the scent of lilac and lavender turning sour heavy in his nose.

Only the salt tang of ocean told him that he was on the right path through the deadening forest.

Fear rose, his heart tightening and breath quickening and shallowing as he moved down the path. He turned, with a deep want to go back to the peace and bright of the meadow and growled in frustration when he found the way blocked by stone and darkness. A quivering nervousness crawled up his spine as he started to run deeper into the forest. 

He was halted in his run by a large moss covered stone house spanning the width of the path and hemmed in on either side by large trees. The moss was spongy under his hand as he was thrown back. The wooden floor of his childhood was hard and cold beneath his hands and knees as he was choked by the almost real scent of sweet lilac and lavender. 

Heart and chest clenching tight he looked up, his mother crumpled and still in the corner beside him, her dress matching the bleeding from her nose. His father surreally still standing over them, fist still clenched and a pale, shocked Rodney standing between them, looking more real than either his mother or father.

"Jesus, John." John had never heard Rodney sound that shocked before and it twisted something inside--he never meant Rodney to know, never meant him to know the shame and feeling of helplessness of seeing your father hit your mother. Rodney stepped forward, closing the distance between them and raised his hand, touching John's hair softly, eyes widening as John flinched. "God John, I would never do anything like that to you." His voice was quiet, gentle, so far removed from the usual bluster and mile a minute speed. 

John swallowed and nodded, sitting back on his heels and taking Rodney's hand. Their palms met and John had a splinter second flash of Rodney white pale with blood running down his face before it was gone and Rodney hugged him tightly, the smell of sweet lilac and lavender fading. "I..I know, I just - " John's voice was high and cracked, why did he sound like a teenager again? 

Nodding, Rodney pulled John to his feet and said, "Hard to forget, huh?"

John nodded, holding Rodney's hand tightly and flinched at the sound of a gunshot, eyes frantically looking around. "Did you hear that?"

Confused, Rodney shook his head, "Hear what?"

"The gunshot," John said.

Turning his head, Rodney looked around the room, "There is no gun here. Must have come from outside." 

Drawing in a shaky breath, John spoke, "Yeah, must have come from outside."

Walking to the door, Rodney said, "Come on, let's get out of here."

John trailed behind him, avoiding the frozen statues of his mother and father. 

Rodney stood in front of the door, broken vase shards around his feet and his hand on the doorknob, trying to turn it. 

"It won't open." Reaching for the doorknob, John paused, his hand hovering over Rodney's for a moment before covering Rodney's hand with his. 

The doorknob turned easily under his touch. Outside was the browning forest. John stepped through the door first, his breath easing and body growing.

The path on the other side of the stone house was wide enough for two people. Rodney held John's hand tightly, thumb caressing the back of John's hand as they walked slowly. John's feet were heavy, every step felt like the earth was trying to hold him in place. He looked down--his feet were covered in thousands of tiny vines, twisting their way around his feet and digging down into the earth. 

John didn't notice that the path had changed until Rodney stopped. He recognized the clean, peach colored room and the hunched seated figure looking out the window. He knew that if he breathed in, he would smell the sweet lilac and lavender of his mother's favorite perfume laced with cordite. 

"I kept buying it for her, even when they said it didn't matter." He didn't realize that he had spoken out loud until he felt Rodney's hand squeezing tighter.

"She's not…" Still alive, John mentally finished Rodney's question. 

With a shake of his head he said, "No."

"And your father?" Rodney asked him softly.

John laughed a harsh and bitter laugh, "Who the fuck knows? I haven't seen him since he left."

What he doesn't mention is how he left. He doesn't tell Rodney how he stole a gun from his father's lock box and held it to his father's head until his father packed a suitcase and left. 

He doesn't tell Rodney how he slept with the gun under his pillow for the next three years, in case his father came back.

John felt his chest with his free hand and felt rough wool, soft raised bars and the cold brass of medals--he was wearing his dress uniform. "This was right before I shipped out to Bosnia, I…" John snapped his mouth shut, holding back the choked feeling in his throat. 

Rodney murmured in his ear, "This was the last time you saw her alive, wasn't it John?"

John nodded, "She died just before my tour was over. She was so proud of me that day, she didn't say anything but her eyes, her eyes were clear." 

Rodney pulled John into another hug, John leaned into Rodney's neck, feeling his pulse beating gently against his cheek, "There wasn't anything you could have done John."

John breathed in, smelling Rodney's familiar coffee and sweat scent tinged with copper. "The nurses and nurses' aides told me right before the aneurysm she had started to get better, and that she was lucid sometimes. She would talk to them about me, about how she knew where I was, and how good of a man I was." 

Rodney cupped the back of John's head and stroked him gently. "She was right." 

"At the funeral," John stopped, his voice rasping and choked, "At the funeral it was just me and the nursing home staff. She didn't have anyone else."

Rodney didn't say anything, just held John as he closed his eyes and sank into Rodney's solid frame, the scent of sweet lilac and lavender fading into the decaying forest. The path swayed and turned around mossy felled trees as they walked hand in hand, shelf mushrooms and mold fungus carpeting the dead trunks.

A hot wind whipped around them, blowing dust and debris into his face, choking him. John pulled Rodney into the empty cockpit of his downed chopper, out of the blinding sand and ran his hands over the smoking console. 

"This is the chopper you downed in Afghanistan, isn't it?" Rodney asked John, holding his hand tight.

John didn't answer, only nodded.

"When you shot me, you thought you were here." Damn Rodney for sounding so understanding. 

Guilt and shame burning deep in John's chest, he couldn't look at Rodney when he answered, "Yes."

"You idiot," Rodney said fondly, "it wasn't your fault. It was the Wraith machine, not you." 

"Goddamnit, I _shot_ you Rodney. I'm responsible for you and _I shot you_." His raised voice echoed in the small space.

"Yes you shot me. And I forgive you." Carefully, Rodney curled his free hand around John's bicep and tried to pull him in close.

With a violent shake of his head, John pulled out of Rodney's grasp and sat in the burned seat, head in his hands. "But what if it happens again? What if next time I shoot you and it's serious? What if you die?" 

"We'll deal with that if it happens again. It still wasn't your fault John, and I do forgive you." Rodney stood next to John, one hand warm and heavy on John's shoulder, squeezing. He sneezed loudly, "Come on, lets get out of here. This smoke is not good for my lungs or allergies." 

John smile wanly and let himself be pulled up, pausing at the cockpit entrance to dab at something red and sticky at the back of Rodney's head.

Rodney rolled his eyes and twisted his head away from John, sneezing again. "Fine fine, we'll get out of here." John stepped out of the cockpit, holding Rodney's hand and stopping just outside the chopper, breathing in the fading smell of smoke and cordite mixing with the stronger smell of salt and seaweed. He smiled brightly at Rodney, "I think we're almost there!"

Rodney looked worried, "Almost where?"

"The sea." John told him. "I can hear it in the distance. And smell it."   
Rodney looked at him skeptically, "No I can't. I'm the one who hit my head, I should be seeing and smelling hallucinations, not you."

"You hit your head?" John narrowed his eyes, "And you didn't tell me?" 

"Well, I think I hit my head. Otherwise, why would there be blood on your fingers?"

John looked down at his fingers and saw bright red fading from his fingertips. "It's gone now."

Rodney's brow furrowed in, "Huh, I thought there was blood on your hands."

John laughed bitterly, "There is red on my hands, Rodney. I've killed."

Touching the tips of John's fingers, Rodney said quietly, "You've kept us safe. You've kept your people safe," and pulled John down the narrowing path to a cold beach. 

High waves splashed cold surf on John's face, the sand and rocks cold beneath his feet, clouds heavy and gray. Ahead there was a large bonfire, two seats placed close to the flames. John pulled Rodney towards the seats; they sat and rubbed numb fingers in front of the flames, watching flakes of snow fall and drift around their feet, disappearing instantly on the hot fire. 

Slowly the fire waned, growing smaller and colder and the day deepened into night, John and Rodney pulled their seats in, trying to get the last of the fire's warmth. They curled into each other, pressing close to protect their body warmth from the deadening cold until the fire was nearly spent. 

It was Rodney who spotted the pad of paper and pen on the other side of the embers, cold wind swirling papery ashes into the sky. With feet numbed past pain, John stumbled around the nearly dead fire, grabbing clumsily at the pen and paper with unfeeling hands, wrapping his cold-stiff fingers around the slender pen and writing messily onto the paper.

With steady hands, John carefully placed the filled pad of paper onto the last few embers and waited, watching the first lick of flames dance up the paper, burning bright in the dark night. Taking a deep breath, John stretched towards the starry sky, feeling warmth tingle back into his fingers and toes. 

As John watched the paper's ashes scatter in the wind, he felt Rodney's hand on his back, stroking his spine, his breath warm in John's ear. The kiss was easy, Rodney's lips opened easily, tongue tracing the outline of John's lips. John closed his eyes and deepened the kiss, hand placed in the center of Rodney's chest, feeling sticky blood and seeing Rodney falling backwards, the sickening crack of skull hitting rock. "Jesus," John murmured, breaking the kiss, "You were shot." 

"And cracked my head on a rock on the way down, open your eyes John," Rodney kissed him again, a brush of closed lips on his cheek.  
Slowly John opened his eyes and shut them again, "Where did the snow go?" He whispered, sun warming his back.

"Does it matter?" Another kiss, soft and warm on John's closed lips.

It took John a moment to open his eyes again, Rodney's blue eyes open and affectionate, his hand cupping John's cheek carefully. "No, it doesn't." He breathed in deeply, the smell of warming air and wet earth thick in his nose. John looked around the fire and the ocean in the distance, the vivid green of spring growth everywhere. "No, it really doesn't." He kissed Rodney again, deeper this time, feeling their connection deep in his bones. 

John could feel Rodney's smile against his lips.

John woke, his cheek pressed against the soft bedcovers of Rodney's infirmary bed, his back aching from being hunched over and his hand gripping Rodney's tightly. Rodney was still sleeping as John checked his watch, 12:01AM Atlantis time--Christmas Day. 

In the time it had taken John to check his watch, Rodney had woken up, his blue eyes gummy and bloodshot with sleep. "Oh," he said, voice rusty and gaze sharpening as he lifted his free hand and touched his lips, "it wasn't a dream. What time is it?" 

John swallowed, "Just after midnight, Christmas Day. You've been out for two days."

Smiling, he wrapped a warm hand around the back of John's neck and pulled him down for a slow, sweet kiss. "Merry Christmas, John." 

finis

**Author's Note:**

> I was heavily influenced by the Middle English dream vision poems [The Pearl](http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/54776-Olde-English--Anonymous--Pearl) by Anonymous and [Piers Plowman](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/LanPier.html) by William Langland


End file.
